06-20-2007, 02:41 AM
Deccan Chronicle, 20 June 2007
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Preparing for battle </b>
By Syed Amin Jafri
<b>Two years ahead of the 2009 Assembly elections, the Congress in Andhra Pradesh is preparing its cadres and leaders for the battle of the ballot.</b> The first of the three-day, region-wise training programmes for Congress workers was inaugurated by Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy on Sunday. <b>Half-a-dozen workers from each of the 294 Assembly constituencies in the State are being trained in leadership qualities. These workers are in turn expected to train the party cadres at the village level to disseminate information on government programmes to the common voters.</b>
<b>The Congress plans to organise intensive training programmes for party men and women at all levels over the next two years to make them âbattleworthy.â The AP Congress Committee has drawn up a 12-point programme to enlist the support of the people and all the stake-holders through these programmes. </b>"Our aim is to go closer to the people," APCC president K. Keshava Rao says. The Congress hopes to counter the Oppositionâs propaganda offensive against the government through this âarmyâ of trained workers.
<b>The objective is to fight anti-incumbency against the government and secure the mandate for another term for the party in 2009. Dr Rajasekhar Reddy foresees âexternal and internalâ problems to the ruling party â from the Opposition parties on the one hand and from bickering and groupism within the party on the other. The party needs to take both these âthreatsâ seriously and tackle them effectively or else the prospects of the Congress in the 2009 elections will be affected adversely.</b> No wonder, the Chief Minister sought to address both these issues at the training camp for the first batch. He took pot-shots at the Opposition parties, more particularly the Telugu Desam and the Communist Party of India-Marxist â for resorting to agitations for their political survival.
<b>He also exhorted the party workers and leaders to shun differences and stay united. The training programmes for party cadres cover basic aspects of politics, such as inculcation of leadership qualities, imbibing of party values, developing communication skills and poll management at the booth level.</b> But what the party needs to do is to âsensitiseâ the party cadres on the issues and problems that the Congress government has inherited from the previous regime and also the problems that have cropped up during its own rule. The agrarian crisis, separate Telangana issue, Scheduled Castes categorisation row and Maoist menace are among the issues inherited from the earlier regime.
<b>The controversy over irrigation projects and intra-State sharing of river waters, Muslim reservations muddle and the lands issue are of its own making.</b> All these issues have persisted over the last three years since the Congress regained power in the State. And, these problems are likely to keep cropping up again and again in the run-up to the 2009 Assembly elections. <b>The ruling party and the government seem to be caught in a chaotic situation on all these issues. These knotty problems are getting more complicated and the government does not have any quick-fix solutions.</b> The Opposition is likely to exploit these issues to embarrass and weaken the ruling party. More than anything else, the Congress should focus on these issues in its training programmes so that its workers can effectively counter the Opposition onslaught.
<b>The agrarian crisis has been addressed to a large extent and the incidence of farmersâ suicides has come down after reaching a peak during 2004-05, thanks to a number of initiatives taken by the Congress government, including a manifold increase in farm credit besides payment of ex-gratia to the families of farmers who ended their lives. The problems of handloom weavers, too, have been sorted out and the incidence of suicides among weavers due to economic distress has also come to nil.</b>
<b>In the countryside, Maoist movement is on a low-key now, after the State government adopted a tough policy and re-imposed the ban on Maoists in the wake of failure of peace talks in 2004.</b> Maoist-police confrontation has considerably eased in recent months and the killings on both sides have come down. <b>However, the row over categorisation of Scheduled Castes into ABCD groups continues to haunt the Congress government. Dalits used to be a reliable vote-bank for Congress before the advent of TD in 1982. But, during his tenure as Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu caused a virtual divide among SCs by implementing ABCD categorisation in 1997 to remove âdisparitiesâ between two main sub-castes. The Malas community is spread mainly in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema and the Madigas community is predominantly based in Telangana.</b>
Presently, the 57 elected representatives from the SCs include 39 MLAs, nine MLCs, six Lok Sabha members and three Rajya Sabha members. Most of them belong to the Congress, followed by the TD, Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the CPI-M. The Supreme Court had struck down the AP Act on SC categorisation in 2004 on a petition filed by Mala Mahanadu. Now, the Mala Mahanadu threatens to take the matter to the apex court again if the Usha Mehra panel appointed by the Central government recommends SC categorisation to âappeaseâ the Madiga Reservations Porata Samithi. The Congress, thus, has no way of coming out unscathed from this mess as rival groups threaten to punish it in the next Assembly polls. <b>The Congress government finds itself in a messy situation on the issue of separate Telangana and the implementation of jobs-for-locals GO 610 and Girglani Commission report on Six-Point Formula/Presidential Order on Local Cadres.</b> The UPA sub-committee formed under the chairmanship of external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee to work out consensus on Telangana statehood has virtually gone into hibernation after TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao and senior leader A. Narendra quit the Manmohan Singh cabinet and came out of UPA last year.
In the meantime, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was virtually decimated in the State after the 2004 polls, has taken up the cause of separate Telangana. <b>Many Congress MPs and MLAs from Telangana region have also been keeping the Telangana issue alive. Now, their counterparts from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema have begun to advocate bifurcation of the State.</b>
For the protagonists and opponents of Telangana, GO 610 comes in handy to settle their regional scores. Girglani Commission, appointed by previous TD regime, submitted its report to the Congress government. In the last two years, the present regime has been caught up in fresh controversies by issuing GOs for implementation of GO 610 and Girglani report and later withdrawing these GOs in the wake of strong protests from opposition parties, including TD and Left parties which are not otherwise favourably disposed towards the demand for separate statehood for Telangana. Now, fresh rows have erupted over the implementation of major irrigation projects like Pulichintala, Polavaram and Dummugudem and the expansion of capacity of Pothireddypadu head regulator. <b>TRS, TD, BJP and Left parties are opposing these projects on the ground that these are meant for diverting Godavari waters to the Krishna delta and for diverting Krishna water to Rayalaseema at the expense of the needs of Telangana region.</b>
<b>Tardy progress on the construction of all major irrigation projects in Telangana is also causing heartburn in the region. Moreover, the TRS, TD and the Left parties are demanding that the government spell out the share of Krishna and Godavari waters for Telangana vis-Ã -vis other regions.</b> <b>Muslim reservation is another ticklish problem which the Congress regime does not know how to tackle. The land issue is also generating a lot of heat these days.</b> Unless the government and ruling party come out with clear-cut stand on all these issues and create awareness among the people, these problems may aggravate further and cast their negative spell over the partyâs poll prospects in 2009.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
AP was the key for the NDA loss of power in 2004 elections.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Preparing for battle </b>
By Syed Amin Jafri
<b>Two years ahead of the 2009 Assembly elections, the Congress in Andhra Pradesh is preparing its cadres and leaders for the battle of the ballot.</b> The first of the three-day, region-wise training programmes for Congress workers was inaugurated by Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy on Sunday. <b>Half-a-dozen workers from each of the 294 Assembly constituencies in the State are being trained in leadership qualities. These workers are in turn expected to train the party cadres at the village level to disseminate information on government programmes to the common voters.</b>
<b>The Congress plans to organise intensive training programmes for party men and women at all levels over the next two years to make them âbattleworthy.â The AP Congress Committee has drawn up a 12-point programme to enlist the support of the people and all the stake-holders through these programmes. </b>"Our aim is to go closer to the people," APCC president K. Keshava Rao says. The Congress hopes to counter the Oppositionâs propaganda offensive against the government through this âarmyâ of trained workers.
<b>The objective is to fight anti-incumbency against the government and secure the mandate for another term for the party in 2009. Dr Rajasekhar Reddy foresees âexternal and internalâ problems to the ruling party â from the Opposition parties on the one hand and from bickering and groupism within the party on the other. The party needs to take both these âthreatsâ seriously and tackle them effectively or else the prospects of the Congress in the 2009 elections will be affected adversely.</b> No wonder, the Chief Minister sought to address both these issues at the training camp for the first batch. He took pot-shots at the Opposition parties, more particularly the Telugu Desam and the Communist Party of India-Marxist â for resorting to agitations for their political survival.
<b>He also exhorted the party workers and leaders to shun differences and stay united. The training programmes for party cadres cover basic aspects of politics, such as inculcation of leadership qualities, imbibing of party values, developing communication skills and poll management at the booth level.</b> But what the party needs to do is to âsensitiseâ the party cadres on the issues and problems that the Congress government has inherited from the previous regime and also the problems that have cropped up during its own rule. The agrarian crisis, separate Telangana issue, Scheduled Castes categorisation row and Maoist menace are among the issues inherited from the earlier regime.
<b>The controversy over irrigation projects and intra-State sharing of river waters, Muslim reservations muddle and the lands issue are of its own making.</b> All these issues have persisted over the last three years since the Congress regained power in the State. And, these problems are likely to keep cropping up again and again in the run-up to the 2009 Assembly elections. <b>The ruling party and the government seem to be caught in a chaotic situation on all these issues. These knotty problems are getting more complicated and the government does not have any quick-fix solutions.</b> The Opposition is likely to exploit these issues to embarrass and weaken the ruling party. More than anything else, the Congress should focus on these issues in its training programmes so that its workers can effectively counter the Opposition onslaught.
<b>The agrarian crisis has been addressed to a large extent and the incidence of farmersâ suicides has come down after reaching a peak during 2004-05, thanks to a number of initiatives taken by the Congress government, including a manifold increase in farm credit besides payment of ex-gratia to the families of farmers who ended their lives. The problems of handloom weavers, too, have been sorted out and the incidence of suicides among weavers due to economic distress has also come to nil.</b>
<b>In the countryside, Maoist movement is on a low-key now, after the State government adopted a tough policy and re-imposed the ban on Maoists in the wake of failure of peace talks in 2004.</b> Maoist-police confrontation has considerably eased in recent months and the killings on both sides have come down. <b>However, the row over categorisation of Scheduled Castes into ABCD groups continues to haunt the Congress government. Dalits used to be a reliable vote-bank for Congress before the advent of TD in 1982. But, during his tenure as Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu caused a virtual divide among SCs by implementing ABCD categorisation in 1997 to remove âdisparitiesâ between two main sub-castes. The Malas community is spread mainly in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema and the Madigas community is predominantly based in Telangana.</b>
Presently, the 57 elected representatives from the SCs include 39 MLAs, nine MLCs, six Lok Sabha members and three Rajya Sabha members. Most of them belong to the Congress, followed by the TD, Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the CPI-M. The Supreme Court had struck down the AP Act on SC categorisation in 2004 on a petition filed by Mala Mahanadu. Now, the Mala Mahanadu threatens to take the matter to the apex court again if the Usha Mehra panel appointed by the Central government recommends SC categorisation to âappeaseâ the Madiga Reservations Porata Samithi. The Congress, thus, has no way of coming out unscathed from this mess as rival groups threaten to punish it in the next Assembly polls. <b>The Congress government finds itself in a messy situation on the issue of separate Telangana and the implementation of jobs-for-locals GO 610 and Girglani Commission report on Six-Point Formula/Presidential Order on Local Cadres.</b> The UPA sub-committee formed under the chairmanship of external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee to work out consensus on Telangana statehood has virtually gone into hibernation after TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao and senior leader A. Narendra quit the Manmohan Singh cabinet and came out of UPA last year.
In the meantime, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was virtually decimated in the State after the 2004 polls, has taken up the cause of separate Telangana. <b>Many Congress MPs and MLAs from Telangana region have also been keeping the Telangana issue alive. Now, their counterparts from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema have begun to advocate bifurcation of the State.</b>
For the protagonists and opponents of Telangana, GO 610 comes in handy to settle their regional scores. Girglani Commission, appointed by previous TD regime, submitted its report to the Congress government. In the last two years, the present regime has been caught up in fresh controversies by issuing GOs for implementation of GO 610 and Girglani report and later withdrawing these GOs in the wake of strong protests from opposition parties, including TD and Left parties which are not otherwise favourably disposed towards the demand for separate statehood for Telangana. Now, fresh rows have erupted over the implementation of major irrigation projects like Pulichintala, Polavaram and Dummugudem and the expansion of capacity of Pothireddypadu head regulator. <b>TRS, TD, BJP and Left parties are opposing these projects on the ground that these are meant for diverting Godavari waters to the Krishna delta and for diverting Krishna water to Rayalaseema at the expense of the needs of Telangana region.</b>
<b>Tardy progress on the construction of all major irrigation projects in Telangana is also causing heartburn in the region. Moreover, the TRS, TD and the Left parties are demanding that the government spell out the share of Krishna and Godavari waters for Telangana vis-Ã -vis other regions.</b> <b>Muslim reservation is another ticklish problem which the Congress regime does not know how to tackle. The land issue is also generating a lot of heat these days.</b> Unless the government and ruling party come out with clear-cut stand on all these issues and create awareness among the people, these problems may aggravate further and cast their negative spell over the partyâs poll prospects in 2009.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
AP was the key for the NDA loss of power in 2004 elections.